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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the interview went well, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

There is never truly break for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his fortunes are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I plan to lead us," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, does he need a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political dangers as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to